Five ways to improve your small business website.

Are you a small business owner? Do you have a website (if you ONLY have a facebook page, then you need a website at some point! )

What draws people to your site? Most likely, it's the photos or the items, or the content. We are so visual as a society now. If your business doesn't have professional looking content representing you and your business, then people might make some wrong assumptions about your business.

If you are trying to sell home-made candles, then having an industrial-looking website with heavy fonts and bad-quality cell-phone pictures will not be a good look for promoting your brand.

If your a car-detailing business, then having girly fonts and pink color schemes will probably not be the look that you are going for- unless your brand is marketing to women who own cars.

Your logo and it's fonts and colors should be incorporated throughout the site for continuity.

I can't stress enough how important it is for a website to "grab" your audience. The average time that people spend on my website is 1.36 (that's one minute and thirty-six seconds.) So If I don't capture them in that amount of time, then I can kiss that customer goodbye.

I know this, because I track my site on Google Analytics (a free google tool usually available through your hosting site). Every month I read about who is going to my site and how they are finding me!

If they have a hard time finding a contact page, or an "About Me" section or even my social links, then they will get frustrated and leave the page. Also, put as much as you can out there! Don't hide your prices in an obscure spots. Don't make people hunt to find what your hours or services are!

Use this FREE tool: http://peek.usertesting.com/ to see how user-friendly your site is!

Just because your website has fancy text animations, doesn't mean that you should you them ALL the time! In fact, I rarely use animations! I think my photos with clean fonts and colors is simple and easy to visually "bite."

Use one basic font and then a complimentary font (try not to use a third font unless you really need too!)

Use one pop of color (like a light blue or hot pink) but then balance it with black or white.

Let your images of your business be the greatest thing that your customer sees. That is whey I can't stress enough the importance of hiring a pro for your video and photos on your website! You'll be SO glad you did!

Video is actually MORE powerful now then photos. So if you want to really hold people's attention, then use video to catch their attention! Hire a pro to show your ideal customer what they are missing if they don't go with you!

My husband makes fun of me because I am constantly updating my website. Well, as time changes, my look changes. I don't want people to be at my site looking at old content.

Let's think about this: if walmart or panera NEVER updated their site, never updated their social pages, NEVER updated their photos or their sales, would people be drawn to them? Hardly. They would look stale as day-old bread.

Blog, write, create contentt, pin, tweet, facebook, instagram, and be interactive with your audience CONSTANTLY.

Five ways to improve your small business website.

Christal